Guide to planting your winter garden

The thermometer might say its 90 degrees out, but it’s time to start planning — and in some cases planting — your winter garden.

Janet Miller, garden manager at Our Garden in Walnut Creek, says our summer gardens are starting to slow down and cool season vegetables need to be planted soon to ensure they are well established before the colder weather arrives.

Brassicas — cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower — should be planted within the next 30 days. If they aren’t well on their way by late fall, they won’t produce at all.

Here are Miller’s tips on starting a cool season garden:

As with a summer garden, you need to start with soil preparation.

Test your soil first. You can purchase simple tests that will give you basic information about your beds, but Miller recommends a more extensive test from a soil testing company for a more in depth look at your garden every few years.

Beds should be worked using a broad fork, which breaks up the soil 18 inches down without disturbing the soil layers, is a good tool to use.

After the soil has been loosened, work in 3 to 4 inches of compost into the top few inches of the bed.

Don’t leave your beds bare. It’s important to grow something to keep micro-organisms in the soil alive. Cover crops of legumes and grains can improve the health of garden beds with little work.

Planting the right crop at the right time is key, so don’t base your planting schedule on what’s available in the nurseries.

Plant seedlings for the big winter crops; root vegetables can easily be grown from seeds. Consider starting seeds in flats to plant later, which will allow you to keep your favorite summer crops in the ground a little longer.

Advantages to winter gardening

Winter gardening has its advantages over summer gardening, Miller says. For one, there are fewer pests to contend with, and fewer weeds.

The menu for winter gardens is also more extensive than that of the summer.

The pace of gardening is slower, too. The plants don’t grow as quickly as they do in the summer, which means you don’t have to rush to get to the harvest before it gets out of hand. You can harvest at your leisure and leave vegetables on the plant for longer times, preserved by the cooler weather.

Next time in the garden, learn how to espalier. Our Garden is a demonstration garden of the Bay Area News Group and Contra Costa Master Gardeners. Free classes are offered at 10 a.m. each Wednesday through the end of October. Visit the garden 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 9 for our fall plant sale featuring drought resistant ornamentals and cool weather vegetable plants. Gardening workshops also will be offered. The garden is at Shadelands Drive and Wiget Lane in Walnut Creek.